It was wild at the Rosewood Terrace Care Center the night that Sandra K. Gordon died.
"We had patients that were being aggressive, we had one patient that was trying to run away, and we had Sandra," testified Sherylene Shaw on Monday during a preliminary hearing for the man prosecutors say is responsible for Gordon's death.At the end of the hearing, 3rd District Judge Robert Hilder ordered Robert Wilson, 41, a registered nurse from Kaysville, to stand trial on one count of aggravated abuse of a disabled or elderly adult, a second-degree felony. If convicted, Wilson could go to prison for up to 15 years.
Shaw, a certified nurse's aide, was working Jan. 5, the night Gordon died, at the now closed Salt Lake care facility. Gordon, 45, who suffered from Huntington's disease, a neurological deficiency that imperils mental and motor abilities, wasn't being particularly aggressive. She was just being her normal self. "She was running back and forth from her room to the nurse's station, screaming," Shaw said.
But Shaw was surprised when Wilson, the nurse in charge at the center that night, ordered her to put Gordon in restraints. Patients were not supposed to be put in restraints unless a doctor ordered care providers to do so to prevent the patients from hurting themselves or others. There was no such order for Gordon that night.
When Shaw asked Wilson why he wanted her on restraints, he answered, "Because I'm no . . . babysitter," Shaw testified.
Shaw took Gordon to her room, changed her clothing and put her on waist and vest restraints, she said.
The following morning, nurse's aide Elvira Gomez began her shift at about 6:30 a.m. and found Gordon dead at the foot of the bed. Gordon was in a sitting position with the vest restraint wrapped around her neck and the waist restraint loose around her body, Gomez said. There was significant bruis-ing throughout Gordon's body.